Beneath the awnings of the boarded-up Washington Center in downtown Portland, dozens of hooded figures congregate amid the trash and graffiti. Some smoke from tin-foil trays. Here, users can score a fentanyl pill or a hit of fentanyl powder for just $2.
Ryan Howe, a habitué of the red-brick plazas next to the shuttered commercial center, said he’s trying to get clean. The 40-year-old often equips himself with Narcan, the life-saving drug that can reverse overdoses, but wasn’t able to save a man he found hunched over on Southwest Fifth Avenue last week.